The latter half of my time in Greece was spent in Santorini, and it breaks my heart that I'm gone. My friend and I split our time between two of Santorini's villages, starting with the famously-photographed Oia. And boy, did it blow us away. From Athens we took a seven hour ferry to the island, which was a quaint journey in its own right -- riding the metro before 7am, almost spilling coffee while walking back to my seat because I had forgotten how to walk on a boat, seeing the blue water spreading out in every direction. After arriving on the island, we took a taxi up to Oia. The road winds sharply through the cliffs of Santorini, always going higher and higher and it was only a bit nerve-wracking to experience.

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Once safely in Oia we found our airbnb that my friend had booked for us, and it was beautiful. Classic Greek architecture, complete with the white walls and accented with blue. Our apartment was HUGE -- there was a bedroom through the door in the middle, and a very spacious kitchen off to the right. We also had a spacious patio all to ourselves, as well as a bathroom in a standalone room outside.

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After getting settled we head out to explore, stopping every two seconds to take a photograph of something. Oia, and Santorini in general, is a labyrinth of stairs and winding walkways, with uneven paths to walk on. My legs were feeling it after only an hour or so, and I'm pretty sure exploring and wandering in Santorini was one of the most intense work-outs I've had since arriving in France.

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Our second day in Oia was gray, rainy, and so windy we could hardly walk outside at all. After fruitlessly trying to find somewhere that was open to shop, we ended up staying at the only open restaurant for a few hours, sipping heavenly cappuccinos and gushing about freshly made tzatziki, and learned from the waitress that day was a national holiday, which explained a lot. We went back to the apartment after, I read and my friend slept, before we ended up at the same restaurant for dinner.

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It was nice to be in Oia during an odd time in the year, which meant that there was a drastically smaller number of tourists than if I had gone in the summer, but I feel like there would have been more open a bit later in the year. Everywhere in Santorini only a fraction of shops, cafes, and restaurants were open, while the others were having repairs done and prepping for the tourist season in the spring and summer.

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I miss the view of the ocean so much already, and the sound of the waves at all hours of the day and night.

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One of the things that I really loved about Oia was the use of color -- with the majority of the buildings being white, color was used sparingly and meaningfully, but usually with a bit of playfulness. Plants offered a lot of color, while doors were also used to break up all of the white.

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My absolute favorite place in Oia is Atlantis Books, a beautiful, tiny bookstore with books in multiple languages that cover everything from fiction to poetry to mythology to travel guides. In my journal I wrote: "This is one of the most amazing bookstores I've ever been in! It's tiny and every surface is put to use, the walls are covered with shelves and quotes and it's being run by a guy who is working there this winter while the owners work at one of his bookstores in NYC. He lives there and it's all so goshdarn delightful."

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I picked up two books while I was there, on two different occasions, but information on those will be coming in a later post. Safe to say, however, that I couldn't be happier with what I ended up with!

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Every view from every point in Oia took my breath away. Looking at these photographs again makes me yearn to be surrounded by blue water. (The rivers in France are more of a murky brown than this gorgeous blue.)

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We did see the sunset in Oia and it was magical, breath-stealing, and magnificent. This was my favorite shot of it though, not the ones where you could actually see the sun. There was something magical as well about seeing the light change and play off of the buildings.

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One place I really wanted to go was Lolita's, but unfortunately it was closed the entire time I was in Santorini. It will just have to happen next visit, then!